Deep Dive Coding Celebrates 5th Anniversary

The bootcamps have delivered the local economy with a pipeline of skilled coders who land high-quality jobs after 10 weeks of instruction

Matthew David at his job with Rural Sourcing Inc.

Jun 07, 2018

Matthew David had very few computer skills when he decided to enroll in one of CNM Ingenuity’s Deep Dive Coding bootcamps. But he didn’t care. It was time for a career change and the idea of securing a high-paying, mentally challenging coding job after just 10 weeks was appealing.

“I threw all my eggs in the Deep Dive Coding basket,” Matthew said. “That’s because a long-term school approach was never going to be possible for me as a result of my previous career and finances. I wanted to take the express route to a better career and I’m glad to say that with a lot of hard work it totally worked out.”

Today, Matt, 31, is an Associate Developer at Rural Sourcing Inc. where he works on the cars.com website. He loves the job because he sees a long-term future, and because the work is challenging in all the right ways.

“It’s sort of like I get to tackle fun adult riddles all day long,” he said.

Matt is not alone in his success. Nearly 300 students have graduated from Deep Dive Coding, which is celebrating the five-year anniversary of its founding this month. CNM Ingenuity acquired Deep Dive Coding from a private entity in August 2014. Since CNM acquired it, almost 50 percent of students have achieved their desired career outcome within 30 days of graduation, and 91 percent have achieved their career outcome in less than six months. The graduates’ average starting salary in the Albuquerque area is $47,000.

The 10- and 12-week bootcamps also attract entrepreneurs. Deep Dive Coding grads have gone on to start 24 new companies.

And there are more success stories to come. Deep Dive Coding just expanded its curriculum beyond is three primary coding camps to offer a Deep Dive Digital Media bootcamp where students will learn everything from how to animate a commercial to video game development. Down the road, Deep Dive Coding is looking into licensing its curriculum to other colleges as well.

You might have heard that Facebook, which just announced a partnership with CNM on a Digital Marketing Certificate, has also committed to funding 32 scholarships for Deep Dive Coding students. The social media giant is committed to helping communities develop their local digital workforce and it’s starting in places like Albuquerque.

“We have a ways to go before we’re an Austin or a Denver, but at Deep Dive Coding we’re moving fast and quickly becoming more competitive,” says Andrea Sisneros-Wichman, the Senior Program Manager who oversees the Deep Dive Coding bootcamps.

Just last month in an Albuquerque Business First story, Bill Kostel, the director of Rural Sourcing Inc.’s Albuquerque Development Center, said he was “very impressed” with the quality of talent coming out of the Deep Dive Coding Bootcamps. RSI currently employs 10 Deep Dive Coding grads.

“What we like about folks coming out (of Deep Dive Coding) and just coding camps in general, in their recent past, they have lived, dreamt, slept, ate code for 10 weeks without all the other distractions,” he said in the Albuquerque Business First story.

Shihlin Lu is another Deep Dive Coding success story. Like Matthew David, she came from an industry outside of coding but immersed herself quickly in the bootcamp and found a path to success. After the bootcamp, Shihlin, who’s 27, secured an internship, then a job with BlueInk where she honed her coding skills.

More recently, she was hired as a Software Engineer by Xpansiv, a firm that uses software to examine the economic and environmental effects of commodity production and the supply chain. It’s the perfect job for Shihlin because she wanted to use her coding skills to refine how we look at sustainability.

“Ultimately, I think there needs to be more companies like Xpansiv that are trying to make an environmental impact with software,” she said. “And for me, it’s really meaningful work because I’m able to align my two passions; coding and the environment.”